Ocean Eyes
by cosipotente
Summary: Kagami Taiga, whose only interests in life had been food and basketball, finds himself thinking of Kuroko at awkward times. Really awkward, really inappropriate times. And Taiga finds that his weird thoughts of Kuroko are actually how his brain deals with crushes.


When he isn't dreaming of food, basketball, or utterly crushing the Generation of Miracles, Taiga dreams of what any sixteen-year old guy would dream of; girls. Long legged or short legged, big breasted or small breasted, his subconscious paints any girl in an attractive light. Except lately all the girls his mind calls forth end up looking strangely like Kuroko.

Like now, in his current dream, a very female Kuroko is wearing Riko's uniform skirt while wading into the sea, the sunset shadowing part of her body, enhancing the outline of breasts and hips. She has on Taiga's jersey, which has oddly shrunk to fit her small frame, and her long blue hair whips around her with the breeze.

Taiga grasps her thin shoulder but she spins quickly away, as if he is some ball to doge.

"You are my light," she says, and her voice echoes in his head all soft and deadpan, not all that different from male Kuroko. "I will always be your shadow, Kagami-kun."

He reaches for her again, this time she gives him a small, sly smile that he wants to wipe off her lips with his tongue.

"Kagami-kun?"

Taiga blinks tiredly; more asleep than awake, and finds his arms has stretched itself out to the side. He follows the length of it with bleary eyes until he realizes his hand is firmly groping Kuroko's small, but defined pectoral muscle.

The noise Taiga makes, some sort of choked, surprised sound, seems ridiculously loud to him in the packed car of the train.

Blue eyes look at him calm and blank, if a bit questioningly. Taiga awkwardly retracts his hand.

It's the heat, it's definitely the heat of Japan's oppressive summer that's making him dream of kissing Kuroko, even if he was a girl in said dream. Taiga shudders despite the sweat rolling off of him in waves.

_"Misakiguchi Station. The train has stopped for Misakiguchi Station."_

Sluggishly, he gathers his gym bag while simultaneously avoiding looking at Kuroko. Not that it helps any when Taiga ends up standing behind the shorter male as the team files out of the train. He stares down at the top of Kuroko's blue head hoping to drill holes into his skull, not at all wanting to run his fingers through Kuroko's hair. He imagines it's silky and would wrap nicely around his finger as Kuroko's head bobbed between his-

"Bakagami!" Riko's fist to the back of Taiga's head stops all his wayward thoughts. "You're holding up the line! Get off the train, you idiot!"

He peers down, and though he shouldn't be, he's surprised that Kuroko is no longer standing before him. As he steps forward and off the train, he tries not to wonder why not having the other boy close to him is so disappointing.

The train station is sweltering and he once again blames all of his current weirdness on the weather. His brain loses all ability to function properly in the heat. If he's sweating for anything other than practice and games, his mind tends to take a vacation.

He stands in line with his teammates as Riko and Hyuuga browse the map rack for directions to Araihama beach. Taiga's brow twitches. Riko had excitedly, and in retrospect very vaguely, announced they would be taking a day trip to a beach on a Sunday morning he could be using to sleep in. He should have known that when Riko sprang anything that looked remotely fun on them, it would mean imminent suffering was in the team's near future.

Taiga can only imagine what she has in store for them.

A sudden image of a female Kuroko in a bikini, boobs bouncing as she plays beach volleyball, assaults Taiga's mind. He was fairly certain Riko did not have that in mind when she suggested the beach trip. But the image continues to haunt him.

"Ack!" He clutches his head, falling to his knees. What is wrong with his mind? Okay, his brain had been throwing pretty weird images and thoughts at him a few weeks after Kuroko's determined declaration that he would be Kagami's shadow, that he would make Kagami the best. And okay, Kagami had more than enjoyed having Kuroko at his back, or side, or wherever the famed Sixth Phantom Player popped up. He enjoyed having the attention of one of the Generation of Miracles.

Kuroko is a nice guy, weird, mysteriously unreadable more often than not, but nice. He's funny when he wants to be. Cute too, like when he stares at Taiga with his wide, blue eyes that make Taiga think of the oceans he's seen in magazines where the water is iso/i blue and goes on forever.

Kuroko is cute and Taiga wants to kiss him, to shake him up, to see if his depthless eyes change.

Taiga stops his rolling about on the station floor, unaware he had been doing it, and peers up into the weirded out expressions his teammates make; except Mitobe, his bushy brows are turned down softly in concern. Taiga ignores them all when he finds Kuroko looking at him.

Really, what the hell is wrong with me? He thinks.

Taiga's cheeks heat up with a blush. Thankfully, it's quickly hidden when Riko steps on his stomach, using his body as a platform while she speaks.

"We each have to purchase bus tickets, 220-yen there and back." There's a round of groans from everyone as they despondently dig out what little money they have leftover from train tickets.

"Coach, if you organize a trip, maybe you should pay for it, too." Koganei suggests. The cat-like smile on his face wiped off when Riko's bag catches him square in the nuts.

She collects their money, digs the heel of her shoe into Taiga's ribs for good measure, and then stomps off to the bus ticket line.

Kuroko holds out his hand to help Taiga up but he ignores it. Like the temperature, being near Kuroko makes Taiga's head do weird things. He has to avoid the other male as much as possible.

**. . . .**

They board bus No. 4 to Aburatsubo and Taiga tries to swindle his way out of not sitting with Kuroko as best as he can. He ends up on the single, fold out seat in the back, staring resolutely out of the window. The bus bounces and dips, occasionally smacking Taiga's head into said window.

It's better than sitting with Kuroko, he tells himself. He hopes that by repeating it, it will be true.

**. . . .**

By the time they finish tramping through a forest and get to the beach, Taiga already feels like he's ran around the sun once or twice. He slumps into the gray sand of Araihama beach.

Beside him, Mitobe drops the large coolers he had been saddle into lugging around and gives Taiga a sports drink and a gentle smile. Taiga finishes the drink in one gulp. Good ol' Mitobe, he thinks. At least someone was nice to him and not screwing with his head like a certain blue haired vanishing teammate he knew.

"Kurokocchi!"

Taiga groans. He picks his head up from the sand just in time to watch Kise bound up to Kuroko. The blond wraps an arm around his former teammate with a big smile. Kuroko doesn't bat a lash, which kind of bothers Taiga because while Kuroko doesn't reciprocate, neither does he move away.

"Who invited him?" Taiga grumbles, pushing himself to stand.

"He invited himself," Riko replies before blowing her whistle right in his ear.

The team forms a circle around her as if they were back in the school's gym and not on a beach.

"Today," Riko says, "I'm going to have you all work on team building. You will be working with people you are both stronger than and weaker than." She looks each one of them in the eye and then gives a smile that is more sadistic than sweet.

"But first, laps up and down the beach!" She announces cheerfully.

The whole team gives off a loud chorus of 'Eh's' in disbelief, but Riko just crosses her arms over her chest and stamps her foot impatiently.

Taiga heaves a huge sigh but jogs when Riko's whistle gives another sharp 'brrr.'

Somewhere between the third and fourth lap, Kuroko ends up running next to Taiga and it's all he can do not to stare at the sweat rolling down his pale body. They had all thrown their shirts off after the first lap as the thin, cotton material was cumbersome under the glare of the sun. He's seen Kuroko shirtless, he's seen him sweat, but Taiga's mind hadn't been all weird and perverted at the time.

This time he's hyperaware of Kuroko and his sweat. It makes him blush and stumble into Hyuuga.

"You're acting weird," Hyuuga says between pants. Taiga takes a moment as they are running to look at Hyuuga's sweat and compares it with Kuroko's. It is definitely disgusting watching guys sweat, there is no way Taiga would want to lick it off Kuroko's body. The captain eyes him through his glasses. "Is this some sort of American thing?"

"What?" Taiga bites out but Hyuuga only shrugs and passes him to catch up with Izuki. "I'm Japanese!" He calls out belatedly to Hyuuga's back.

They run fifteen laps before Riko blows her whistle again, calling them back to the little area of the beach they had claimed. Not that the beach was crowed, Araihama wasn't a particular hopping place to be on a Sunday. Which means they have ample room to run around doing as their coach says.

Kawahara and Fukuda hand out drinks as Riko doles out their next exercises.

"Next up, you'll be doing a sort of flag football match. Just without the football and each team will only have one flag." She explains, voice clear and eyes moving over them quickly, mentally dividing them into teams. "Once I divide you into teams, pick your captain and then the captain will pick the flag keeper.

She points to Hyuuga. "A team: Hyuuga, Kuroko, Fukuda, Furihata, and Mitobe." She points them to the left and Kise hands them a blue flag.

Taiga watches irritatedly as Kise hangs off Kuroko.

"B team," Riko calls out, keeping Taiga's mind away from the thoughts of breaking a certain blond's arms. "Kagami, Izuki, Kawahara, Koganei, and Tsuchida."

Kise throws their flag with a half-assed flick of his wrist, the green thing fluttering to the sand between them. Taiga gives into his imagination as Koganei retrieves the flag. He pictures a giant octopus ripping Kise in half. Taiga doesn't even care to question why Kise going within 5-meters of Kuroko bother him so much, he just continues to imagine the blond dying violently.

He isn't aware of the scary, shark-like grin stretching across his face.

"You are terrifying today." Izuki says, elbowing him in the ribcage. "You definitely aren't being the captain."

"Eh!" Taiga gapes. "That's unfair!"

"All in favor of Kagami not being the captain?" Izuki asks. Hands shoot up unanimously.

"Whatever," Taiga says, not really caring if he was captain or not. He just has to make sure his team doesn't lose. "They were probably expecting me to be captain anyway."

In the back of his mind, Taiga hopes this exercise will keep his mind from thinking weird thoughts of Kuroko.

They name Kawahara captain and he picks Koganei as the flag keeper. They have no definite way of knowing who is who on the A team but both Izuki and Taiga conclude they will use Kuroko's vanishing drive to somehow capture B team's flag. Izuki assigns himself to guarding Koganei, and in effort to let Kawahara feel more like the captain, Tsuchida suggests he, Taiga, and Kawahara himself be the team's offense. Kawahara takes the suggestion like he'd come up with it himself.

Riko's whistle sounds again and they break their huddle.

"Keep the contact to a minimum, with chest blocks only." Riko instructs, tone serious. "There will be five matches with no time limit."

She raises the whistle, gives it a quick blow, and then steps quickly away as the exercise commences.

The first match goes by quickly. B team's capture of A team's flag is anti-climatic, Kuroko's slip up in the sand allows Kawahara to easily snatch the flag from where it was tucked into the band of his shorts.

Taiga smirks to himself. With the even division, Kuroko can't disappear. It sets the A team up for a quicker defeat, especially considering Hyuuga isn't particularly good at driving forward and the other three, Mitobe, Furihata, and Fukuda are mostly suited for guarding.

The second round passes much the same, except it's Tsuchida who snatches the flag. B team allows themselves a minute to hoot and holler before setting up again for the third match.

When Mitobe flies forward to block Taiga, it takes him no more than a minute to realize the other team had been leading them into a false sense of security. The minute he had taken to realize that, was that exact amount of time it took Kuroko to vanish and reappear behind Koganei, their green flag clutched in his hand.

The next matches proceed similarly. Taiga being blocked by Hyuuga and then Fukada, the change up confusing him long enough to allow Kuroko to slip past each time and claim their flag.

"Kurokocchi! You're so cool!" Kise cheers, bounding up to the blue haired male.

Taiga, for a moment, is oblivious to the blond's obnoxious presence. A realization had dawned on him after his second defeat. Kuroko is his weakness like Kuroko was Kise's weakness. Kuroko is fast, Taiga knows this, but he'd never had that speed used against him. He needs to train to be faster than the Phantom Sixth Player. That makes Taiga laugh to himself and look over at Kuroko, the blue haired boy talking to Kise in his deadpan manner.

Seirin is very lucky to have Kuroko of the Generation of Miracles. Taiga is even luckier to have him has a teammate, as his shadow. Kuroko will no doubt make his light brighter as promised.

A warmth spreads through Taiga that has nothing to do with the blistering summer heat as he walks over to Kise and Kuroko. He realizes it's fifty-percent pride in his teammate as he puts a hand on Kuroko's shoulder. It's also twenty-percent excitement at the prospect of being better than the Generation of Miracles he thinks as he punches Kise in the shoulder to separate him from Kuroko. The lingering thirty-percent is some unnamed feeling that flutters in Taiga's stomach when he smiles down at Kuroko.

**. . . .**

**Notes:** ((Originally written for the KuroBasu Anon Meme on tumblr. ))  
I'm further in the anime than I am in the manga. I'm pretty lazy with manga. Also, I know nothing of summer in Japan (I went for a week in the fall/winter) so excuse my generalizations. And flag football (with either an American football or rugby ball) does exist in Japan, if anyone was curious.

Hopefully, my first post here wasn't _too_ bad.


End file.
